The world of spirits is a favourite topic with your aristocratic
dilettanti, and every Austrian family _qui se respecte_ has its
spectre.
The Zinsenburgs have their White Lady, the Truyns their magnificent
four-in-hand, which, as the fore-runner of any terrible domestic
calamity, rattles past the windows of the Truynburg in the Bohemian
forest--no one knows whither or whence.--The Kamenz family have only a
black hand that inscribes weird characters of fire on the walls; the
Lodrins have their blind woman who is heard laughing when disgrace or
misfortune threatens the family. Of all the family spectres in Bohemia
this laughing, blind woman is the most grisly. Her origin dates from
dim antiquity. The legend runs that in the eleventh or twelfth century
a knight, Wolf von Lodrin, married in accordance with a family
arrangement, but with no love on the bride's part, a beautiful and
noble maiden. Inflamed with passion for her, and finding it impossible
to win her affection, in an evil hour, and in a fit of devilish rage,
he struck her across the face with his riding-whip, and blindness
followed the blow. Overcome by horror at what he had done the knight
fell into a brooding melancholy, and at last killed himself. When his
blind widow was told of it, she laughed; she herself lived to be a
hundred years old, but after the knight's suicide she never spoke a
single word,--only every time that any calamity befell the family, or
one of its sons suffered disgrace she could be heard laughing. It was
this blind spectre that still haunted Tornow. Formerly she had been
seen frequently, it was said, a tall figure in grey, with a black
bandage over her eyes, and an uncanny smile upon her pale lips, and the
apparition always preceded some dire family misfortune. Her laugh had
last been heard the day before Oswald's birth, wherefore it was feared
that either the mother or the child would die, or that the Countess
would give birth to some monster. But when a beautiful boy was born,
and the mother recovered after her confinement much sooner than had
been predicted, the blind Cassandra rather fell into disrepute,
especially as both the Count and Countess set their faces against any
belief in her existence, the Count because of his devout religious
faith, and the Countess because she was too enlightened to encourage
any such superstition.
Oswald had never bestowed much thought upon the spectre, merely smiling
in a superior way when it was mentioned, but in the present excited,
irritated state of his nerves even the superstitious gossip of his old
servants made an impression upon him. During the rest of the evening,
however, he put forth all his force to obliterate the impression that
his irritability at the whist-table had made upon Truyn and Pistasch.
And he succeeded; but when, after all the guests had departed, he
retired to his room for the night his strength was exhausted. The old
torture assailed him, only it was even keener and more agonizing than
that which he had brought with him from Prague. He tossed his head from
side to side on his pillow in feverish sleeplessness. Endowed from
boyhood with that faultless courage which is rather a matter of
temperament than of education, to-night for the first time in his life
he was thrilled with a vague dread. Every noise, however slight, made
him catch his breath with a suffocating sense of oppression.
At last his eyes closed in troubled and restless sleep, but his anguish
pursued him in his dreams. He seemed to be lying upon a meadow of
emerald green, with bright flowers blooming all around, and gay
butterflies fluttering here and there, while above him arched the
cloudless blue, lit up by golden sunshine. Suddenly he felt the earth
beneath him move, and he began slowly to sink into it. Overcome with
horror he tried to arise, but the more he tried the deeper he sank into
what was loathsome, slimy mud. He awoke, bathed in cold perspiration,
gasping for breath, his heart beating wildly.
He gazed around; everything wore a weird unwonted look in the
half-light of the summer night that encircled every object with a halo
of grey mist. Through the open windows the heavy, sultry air floated in
and out. He listened,--everywhere was silence, all nature lay as under
the ban of an evil spell. Then a stir broke the silence,--did something
rustle softly?--he seemed to hear the very wings of the night-moths
fluttering above the flowers. His father's death mask glared white
through the gloom; it grew longer and longer as if fain to descend from
where it hung---- What was that----? a low chuckle seemed to sound
behind the very wall beside him! The bodiless shadows floated hither
and thither and suddenly grouped themselves in one spot; a tall grey
figure with bandaged eyes and white lips drawn into a scornful smile
stood leaning against the wall--it moved! It glided to his bed;
uttering a cry he grasped at it; it vanished and he fell back on his
pillow.
A few minutes afterward a light step approached his door, the latch was
cautiously lifted, and his mother in a long white dressing-gown,
holding a lighted candle in a little flat candlestick, entered. Her
bedroom was just beneath his, and she had heard his cry. "Ossi!" she
called gently.
"Yes, mother!"
"What was the matter?"
"I had a bad dream."
She lit the candles upon his table and leaned over him, scanning his
features, startled by their ghastly pallor. "What is the matter with
you, Ossi?--I cannot endure any longer to see you silently suffering
such pain and distress."
"Nothing," he said dully--"nothing."
"Nothing! Can you--will you say that to me,--to me, your mother! A
while ago, when you returned from Prague, I thought you changed, but
you soon recovered; yet all last evening I was conscious that you were
tormented by some secret anguish. For God's sake, tell me what it is."
As she spoke she stroked his arms soothingly from the shoulder
downwards. "If you only knew what torture it is to me to see you suffer
without being able to help you, or at least to share your pain with
you!"
The nameless magic of her presence affected him more powerfully than
ever--her tender caress produced in him the delightful, languid
sensation of convalescence. For a moment he half-resolved to tell her
everything, that she might once for all allay his pain. But his cheek
flushed,--how could he?--no, he must master it of himself. He pressed
both her hands to his lips.--"Do not ask me, mother, I pray you," he
murmured, "how often must I repeat that I cannot, try as I may, tell
you everything."
The Countess gravely shook her head. "That excuse does not satisfy me;
I can understand that it is easier to speak of certain things to a
father than to a mother, but don't you know that never since your
boyhood have I tried to keep you in leading-strings? When did I ever
play the spy upon your actions, or meddle with what did not concern a
mother?"
"Never, mother dear, so long as I was well and happy," he assented,
involuntarily adopting a tone of tender raillery, "but, if I happened
to hang my head,--oh, then, you were sometimes very indiscreet."
"A son who is ill or unhappy is always about two years old for his
mother," she said. "Come now, confess; I am an old woman, you can speak
out before me. I am convinced that your exaggerated conscientiousness
is leading you to magnify some very commonplace affair;--an old love
scrape is perhaps casting a shadow over your betrothal...."
"You are mistaken, mamma, there is nothing to trouble me in my past; it
is all as if it had never been."
"Well, then, what troubles you?"
For a moment he did not speak, then he said in a low tone rather
hastily, "A wretched nervousness--sorry fancies! Can you believe
it?--just before you came in, I saw plainly, as plainly as I see you,
the laughing blind woman come towards me!"
"Are you beginning to suffer from the Lodrin hallucinations?" the
Countess exclaimed.
The 'Lodrin hallucinations,'--she uttered the words carelessly, without
reflection. His soul drank them in thirstily.
"Apparently, mamma, but I shall get rid of them, I shall certainly get
rid of them," he replied in a clear, joyous voice.
"And what other fancies did your nerves suggest?" she asked,
scrutinizing his face anxiously.
"Loathsome imaginings which sullied my heart and soul, and which I
tried in vain to banish, foul suspicions of those whom I venerate most.
I was free from them in your presence only, mother, and that is why I
have come to you so often of late; these phantoms never dare to assail
me when I am with you!"
The Countess arose and extinguished the candles; for a while there was
silence.
"Mother," he said softly, and almost overpowered by sleep as he took
her hand in his, "tell me what it is that rays out from your hallowed
eyes, with power to chase all shadows from my soul?"
Again there was silence. For a few minutes she listened to his calm
regular breathing. He had fallen asleep.
With hands folded in her lap, deadly pale, and with a look of horror in
her eyes, she remained seated on the edge of the bed. The day had just
dawned when she arose. Oswald half awoke and opened his eyes. "You here
still, mamma? Oh what a delicious sleep I have had!"
"Sleep on, my child," she whispered, leaning over him and kissing his
brow, before she left the room. She glided slowly along the corridor,
her hand upon her heart. "Shall I have the strength," she murmured,
"shall I have the strength?"